Organic synthesis using chemical tags: the third Leg of parallel synthesis

Increasing emphasis has recently been placed on the development of synthetic methods which effectively couple chemical synthesis and purification. For example, new formats for parallel synthesis are being developed which involve attachment of chemical tags to both reagents, reactants, and substrates to permit their chemoselective removal from reaction mixtures. The driving force for the development of tagged organic reagents is the ability to use standard solution-phase chemistry methods and reaction monitoring techniques (e.g. TLC and HPLC). In this mini-review, we will outline recent developments on the growing class of chemically tagged reagents, reactants, and substrates and highlight examples of their use in multistep synthesis.